I try to add images to my blog posts that will capture the spirit of the writing. Occasionally I use my own photos, but most of the time I use images that I find online. A quick search will usually unearth several options from which to choose. Often my search terms are a bit unusual, but I still get images that will work for my article. Recently, however, that wasn’t the case.

I wanted to find something appropriate for yesterday’s post on fat and fashion, but I didn’t what I was looking for. Let me tell you what I did find. First there were beautiful models and bloggers and various other fat girls and women. They are the ones who make fashion and fat work together. They had on cute dresses, short skirts, leggings, blouses, swimwear, and lingerie. Their hair was done, their makeup was perfect, and most of them looked adorable. They just weren’t quite what I was looking for.

I expanded my search terms and that’s when I got back results I never expected. Sure I know there are jerks on the internet. I believe that people with jerk tendencies get way jerkier when they hide behind their keyboards, and the stuff I stumbled across seemed to confirm this theory.

What I came across was the FA war. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but sadly there is. What is FA, you ask? Fat Acceptance. Now I don’t claim to be an expert on this “movement” if that’s what it is, but my understanding of it is this, fat people want to be accepted for who they are. At least that’s the simple explanation. Now that seems not only reasonable, but it seems perfectly logical to me. In fact, if you take off the word “fat” and just say people want to be accepted for who they are, I think most people would agree. It stands to reason, then, that any kind of people would want that same acceptance: fat people, gay people, disabled people, elderly people, left-handed people, vegan people, whatever… So why do so many people hate them?

Yes, I said hate. Yes, I know it’s a strong word, but some of what I saw was way stronger than that. Here were these people posting pictures and messages of self-acceptance and other people were completely bashing them, spewing all sorts of verbal venom. Frankly I found it disturbing. What kind of person refers to a stranger as a “moronic sea cow?” One who’s not very nice, that’s for sure.

I’m in favor of returning to the golden rule. Don’t agree with someone? That’s fine. Express your opinion, but be respectful.